Pisa | Beyond the Tower

Pisa in January, in the rain, and the half of the city the day trips never see

It was a Tuesday in January, ten degrees, the kind of soft grey Tuscan winter rain that does not quite commit to being rain, and we had been on the coast for less than a month after a fall spent up in a stone village above Carrara. Marciaso had been beautiful and silent and very, very cold, and Sophia and I had eaten our way through Lunigiana, and what we wanted, in a way that surprised both of us, was a bowl of Japanese noodle soup.

The nearest place to get one was Pisa.

So at eleven in the morning, we got in the car and drove the thirty minutes inland, and at quarter to two, we found a parking space at the end of a street I now cannot find on a map, and we walked into MIU Ramen ten minutes before the kitchen shut for the afternoon, and the cook looked at us once and then nodded and we sat down. The broth came out steaming. The rain on the window of the small room was the slow, grey kind. We ate the way two people eat ramen when they have driven thirty minutes through winter weather …